


we who pour ashes from the windows

by corraidhin



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, M/M, Post-X-Men: Dark Phoenix (Movie), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corraidhin/pseuds/corraidhin
Summary: Moving on is a process Charles isn't very good at.





	we who pour ashes from the windows

**Author's Note:**

> coda to x-men: dark phoenix. title taken from the poem "wind in a box" by t. hayes.
> 
> i finally watched dark phoenix and had emotions to work through.

Erik is always there.

They live on an island with a population of below one hundred people, and yet Erik is always busy. Charles finds him everywhere: helping with construction, planting vegetables, discussing the supplies list for the next ship to the closest city. Always present, always talking to people - though Charles tries not to eavesdrop, surface information cannot help but flood his mind, and though plenty of what Erik talks about is business, a good part of it is idle chat. Conversational. Friendly. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. There's no artifice in Erik's voice, only genuine interest and a raw vulnerability. 

It seems like a very long time ago that Charles saw the possibility - the _potential_ \- for this kind of life for Erik, but time eroded it into nothing as it does most things, forgotten as if it never existed, cast aside. Now, though, looking at Erik, it's almost impossible to imagine him doing anything else. 

Charles wonders, briefly, in a moment stolen from himself, what Erik could have been like as a teacher -- but that path is closed to both of them now. Perhaps it's for the better.

Once, Charles hears him laugh during a discussion which for all intents and purposes seems to be about potatoes.

Erik laughs a lot, these days. It's jarring; it makes him hard to recognize on some days. (But then, Charles can't quite recognize himself - or perhaps it's the other way around, that for the first time in his life he sees clearly who and what he is, delusions of grandeur stripped away to leave behind nothing but hollow awareness of his own many, many mistakes).

It's strange. The rage and bitter misery of Erik's personality is still there, simmering under the surface of his thoughts; molten lava in an otherwise still ocean. Were it not for Charles' powers, he would never have guessed it from Erik's demeanor - but the core of his beliefs is still rigid bedrock, the loss of Raven as sharp in his mind as it still is in Charles'. That relentless passion (which made Charles fall in love with him so), and the boiling, unforgiving fury of him, leashed and sharpened into the finest weapon over the many years.

And yet, Erik laughs more every day. He catches Charles looking at him and his mouth lifts in a smile; a greeting, a challenge, a welcome. _How strange is it that the both of us are here together, at the end of the world_, he told Charles when he first brought him to the island, like it was no small wonder that after everything that happened to them, they were still standing, drifting back together not just to fight, but to _live_.

They still fight, of course, but now it's over small things. Important, in the shrunk scope of their lives, but not crucial to the fate of the world, not arguments that break things and people apart, and although the dance is familiar to Charles, the song isn't. He's not used to having room made for him by people he loves, and the novelty of it is thrilling, exhilarating, and yet so very undeserved. 

The one who moves the chess pieces hardly ever pays the price for losing, after all.

So when Erik smiles at him, Charles can't find it in himself to smile back, not yet, not quite. 

Once upon a lifetime ago, he told Erik that there was good in him - now, it's evident in the work wrought by Erik's hands, the effort put into this refuge (the refuge that could've almost, all too easily, been lost), this window into a growing, vibrant dream. 

It feels like Charles' own legacy is nothing but the blood on his hands. Even here, in this nowhere corner of land, where plenty of outcasts find a new home, he feels adrift; uncertain what it is he's good for, if he's ever been good for anything at all.

*

"Wallowing in self pity suits you ill," Erik tells him, confrontational and concerned both.

Charles deflects, as he always does these days. "You remember when I broke you out from the Pentagon, yes? I was wallowing then. I thought I looked quite dashing." 

Erik laughs again, as if he can't quite help it. "You weren't terribly helpful as I recall," he says, letting Charles get away, letting him not talk about it.

Charles feels fury rise in him for the first time in days. He doesn't need to be handled like a-- 

But he shakes off his anger. He does nothing, instead.

Erik doesn't show if he's noticed the barely-there outburst. Perhaps he did.

But then again, Erik lets him get away with a lot these days.

*

They almost lost the island.

After Jean left, the government came. It took all of Charles' connections to keep the school, to fight for Erik's refuge, all of his resources and power, and it still had barely been enough. 

He'd thought, maybe, that if he worked with them he could gain their respect, his foot in the door; his opinion would mean something. But in the end, it had only taken the actions of one person who was not even here anymore to turn everyone against them.

They could have lost all of it.

But Charles won, in the end. He was good at winning by any means necessary, it turned out. He stayed until he knew the school was safe; until he'd fought everyone away with the ferocity of a wolf protecting its den. And then he handed matters over to Hank, and left without ceremony and fanfare.

He didn't want to say his goodbyes; he was afraid of hearing that people would miss him. He was afraid of them telling him good riddance.

Raven had always been the hero everyone saw in her; the best of all of them. The best of Charles. And Charles' pride killed her. It's not a sin that can ever be undone.

*

Initially, when Erik first brought him to the commune, Charles pondered what he could contribute, what worth he could have in a land of people who worked hard where he couldn't do anything at all.

(He briefly considered taking the serum again, forsaking his powers once more. It's not like he couldn't live without them. But he feared the next battle to come, and when he imagined being useless and powerless then, his blood ran cold).

But the telepath - Selene - who used to handle communications was lost in the struggle on the train; she didn't die, but her wounds were severe to the point where she may as well have been.

_\--taken to a hospital, in a coma, most likely will never wake again-_

Another casualty of the war.

Charles has her job now, and feels guilty that he'd never asked her name until Erik told him she'd been on the train with them. Charles had forgotten. 

He helps coordinate many things, a veritable second in command, though actual decisions are taken off his hands. Making choices for the good of others is no longer one of his responsibilities.

It is, frankly, a relief.

*

"I thought I understood you before," Charles says one evening. They're playing chess outside; the weather is warmer than he's used to, but not unpleasant. A solitary candle on the table, wick almost burned down; soon, they will have to go inside.

But not yet. 

Erik makes his move with the calculated calm of long practice. He hardly seems to think about it; as if it's less of a game they're playing and more of a dance, a carefully choreographed performance in mutual understanding. "And what do you think now?"

Charles looks at the chessboard; next to it, the white queen he sacrificed five moves ago. Nothing but a piece in a game - but it's not like Charles can say his attitude towards life has been any different. He thinks of Raven's ferocious, angry eyes, her conviction and bravery. Of the noise her body made when pulled off the bloody spikes.

He speaks the truth plainly for the first time in months. "That I cut myself on my own arrogance and yet never paid the price. You'd lost so much more than I have, even when we first met, and I tried to... _teach_ you about it," he spits with disgust. "As if I knew anything about such pain. Such _guilt_."

Raven looked so surprised when she died.

Erik is silent for long moments. The candle flickers in the night. "Charles," Erik says at length, and sighs. Suddenly he looks very tired. "We rarely agreed. But you've always understood me more than anyone else in my life. Uncomfortably so." He makes a move. "Perhaps you should take the advice you've always given me and look forward instead of back."

Charles laughs in spite of himself. Makes his move. "How the tables have turned."

"Indeed," Erik says. He's smiling again. He doesn't say that Charles would do well to listen to him; the checkmate that follows says it for him.

Charles allows himself the indulgence of thinking that perhaps sometimes it might be freeing to let himself lose; to let himself be wrong. He closes his eyes and breathes, leans back in his chair. He can feel Erik at the edges of his mind, always there - and how long has it been since the last time they sat together like this, without Charles worrying that Erik might leave? 

Now, Erik cannot leave; this is his home. Perhaps, in time, it could be Charles' as well. It's not like he has anywhere else to go, anyway.

He leans back in his chair and looks above, at the cloudless expanse of the night sky, where fire dances with the stars, and lets himself smile.


End file.
